Eugenics arose out of ideas of social darwinism. The ideas were valid scientific concerns in the day. The problems arose when they were taken as justification for public policy and agendas. Governments passed laws using these ideas. As I currently see it, it was a way to rubber stamp ideological policy. I see the same may, and I mean "may" not "is", may be happening with respect to social change agendas in the UK.

When half formed science, especially if controversial, is taken as justification for sweeping social change that may harm the public, questions need to be asked. When it continues in defiance of the evidence it is not working, and reasonable analysis it cannot work to fulfil its stated objectives, then there is even more reason to ask hard questions.

Should the policies with respect to DWP and ATOS be justified, then let them be seen to be justified, let the questions be answered. It is however more likely, in my current view, that the justifications used are far short of adequate. This appears to be social harm, leading to increased societal costs, to fulfil an ideological agenda. It will probably not save the UK money, or the economy, or improve democracy, it will probably harm these things, and at the expense of those least able to cope with that harm.

When government and associated institutions support research that justifies their agendas, and the potential funding bias arising from political favour might distort the research, we have Zombie Science. The world has faced Zombie Science before: eugenics and social darwinism. We woke up then, will we wake up this time?

Sorry Barbc56, I took the bait and got distracted by the 'eugenics' word. Yes psychiatry may have the opposite point of view, even if it is/was a silent or silenced point of view. Its a huge subject that cannot take place on this thread. I want to know more about Sir whatshisname so I'm stopping with ref to eugenics.

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LOL, You aren't the first to get distracted. It comes with this illness,eh? Like you said a very interesting subject but I want to know more about Sir whatshisname, too. I like that name.
Take care.
Barb

The reason I raised the issue of science turned social movement is that BPS is becoming politicized, and therefore this may influence government and media spin and government policy, including awards given to Whatshisname or anyone else. ("Whatshisname" is a good name, I like it too.)

Are you saying that eugenics is a thing of the past and its not something that we should bother about. Is this a "nothing to see here" moment? So relieved you have let me know that Eugenics WAS a popular idea, and that it can put down to post modernism, is that because there are no in-your-face pamphlets or wall posters indoctrinating us.
Psychiatry and eugenics are pretty much intertwined from the beginning to the present. Eugenics has not gone anywhere.

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I meant Post Modernism as the descriptor of the politics of ‘now’, with its capacity to accommodate anything that the (cough) ‘zeitgeist’ demands. Eugenics was( relative to Post Modernism) a philosophy of Modernism, although its popularity was undoubtedly rooted in pre modern prejudices – race, gender, religion etc. I’m not aware that Eugenics with a capital E has in any sense survived the profound loss of legitimacy wrought upon it by the revelations of the Nazi extermination policies.

Do ancient prejudices survive – of course, but it is one thing for a society to have a general dislike of those it sees as collectively forming an unnecessary burden, and a philosophy based on claimed science. In fact the more basic ideas of eugenics (although no one will use that name) have become an accepted part of modern societies, there are many people who are carriers of genes for heritable diseases who are choosing not to have children and of course medical abortion is practiced widely. Eugenics as a philosophy wasn’t just socially and morally flawed, it was scientifically flawed which is why it has no widespread currency long past the shock of what it produced in Germany.

I’ve no idea what you mean by Eugenics has not gone anywhere; nor its connection to Psychiatry, other than that perhaps the social environment of the 19thC which saw containment of the mad , the ‘halt’ and the ‘feckless’ as being appropriate, was contemporary with both the development of both Eugenics and Psychiatry. Psychiatrists eventually led the way in questioning the value of large scale permanent containment of people with mental illness – equating Psychiatry with Eugenics appears historically just plain wrong.

The Eugenic Legacy in Psychology and Psychiatry....(full article behind a pay wall) but the conclusion that eugenics remains an important area of enquiry in their fields seems very much alive and well.

The original petition itself has been taken down owing to (and heard only 3rd hand) complaint. Thought we had free speech here ...........the mind (yes I do have one, not imagining as once told) boggles at the implication.........legals, friends in high places, too much disturbing history in ME and psychiatry to be revealed perhaps..........etc.

I meant Post Modernism as the descriptor of the politics of ‘now’, with its capacity to accommodate anything that the (cough) ‘zeitgeist’ demands. Eugenics was( relative to Post Modernism) a philosophy of Modernism, although its popularity was undoubtedly rooted in pre modern prejudices – race, gender, religion etc. I’m not aware that Eugenics with a capital E has in any sense survived the profound loss of legitimacy wrought upon it by the revelations of the Nazi extermination policies.

Do ancient prejudices survive – of course, but it is one thing for a society to have a general dislike of those it sees as collectively forming an unnecessary burden, and a philosophy based on claimed science. In fact the more basic ideas of eugenics (although no one will use that name) have become an accepted part of modern societies, there are many people who are carriers of genes for heritable diseases who are choosing not to have children and of course medical abortion is practiced widely. Eugenics as a philosophy wasn’t just socially and morally flawed, it was scientifically flawed which is why it has no widespread currency long past the shock of what it produced in Germany.

I’ve no idea what you mean by Eugenics has not gone anywhere; nor its connection to Psychiatry, other than that perhaps the social environment of the 19thC which saw containment of the mad , the ‘halt’ and the ‘feckless’ as being appropriate, was contemporary with both the development of both Eugenics and Psychiatry. Psychiatrists eventually led the way in questioning the value of large scale permanent containment of people with mental illness – equating Psychiatry with Eugenics appears historically just plain wrong.

I am nearly lost for words, but not surprised. Does this serve as the Establishment's condoning of the neglect and/or abuse of a large group of very sick people? What hope do we in the UK have of having our illness taken seriously in the next few years if this man is honoured for his treatment of us?

A leading researcher into the mental health of military personnel has been knighted in the New Year's Honours.Prof Simon Wessely, said he was "genuinely surprised and incredibly honoured" by the award.He now heads the department of psychological medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London.He became interested in "medically unexplained symptoms and syndromes" early in his career, and studied chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) - or ME.In 1991 he was involved in setting up one of the first NHS clinics for people with CFS symptoms and in the mid 1990s, he started to investigate Gulf War Syndrome.This disputed condition had been linked to personnel who served in the first Gulf conflict in 1990-91.

Caroline Shaw receives a CBE for her work at The Christie cancer hospital​

Reported symptoms ranged from chronic fatigue, headaches and sleep disturbances to joint pains, irritable bowel, stomach and respiratory disorders and psychological problems.Prof Wessely has said there may not be a distinct illness.He said: "Gulf War Syndrome is a misnomer," he said. "Rather it's an illness or health effect."We established something happened, but we found no specific cause."The fascinating thing is that it didn't happen again in Iraq, and the reason for that remains enigmatic."Prof Wessely continues to study the long-term effects on those now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.But he said that there had been improvements in the mental health care for armed forces personnel and those close to them."There is now improved psychological support, particularly for reservists and families."'Huge honour'He was among a large number of researchers, charity workers and NHS staff to receive honours.Other health experts recognised included Stephen O'Brien, Chair of Barts and The London NHS Trust, who also receives a knighthood.Respiratory health expert Prof John Britton and Caroline Shaw, chief executive of Manchester'sspecialist cancer hospital, The Christie are among those made CBEs.One of those is Caroline Shaw, who is appointed a CBE for her work running The Christie cancer hospital in Manchester.A former midwife, Ms Shaw was one of the youngest female NHS chief executives when she took over at the Christie in 2005.She said: "I am incredibly proud... It is such a huge honour to be recognised in this way for my work in an industry I believe in and care passionately about.

I forgot to write this a few years ago and been reminded by egregious award.

A knighthood is no longer seen as reputable as it once was.

Smart people know that it is an award for corruption and cronyism.

In fact Knighthoods have been bestowed and forfeited recently on:

Sir Jimmy Saville in 1972 as Order of British Empire (OBE) and in 1990 for "charitable services" (and for services to children's entertainment) and was after his death confirmed to be a serial predatory paedophile and Britain's most prolific.

In the 1990 Queen's Birthday Honours he was made a Knight Bachelor "for charitable services",[151] entitled to use the honorific prefix "Sir". Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had made four attempts to have him knighted before succeeding in her final year in office.[152]Following the allegations of sexual abuse, British Prime Minister David Cameron suggested in October 2012 that it would be possible for Savile's honours to be rescinded by the Honours Forfeiture Committee. A Cabinet Office spokesman said that there was no procedure to posthumously revoke an OBE or knighthood, as these honours automatically expire when a person dies, but that the committee might consider introducing a process to do so in the light of Savile's case.[153]

Sir Fred Goodwinfor "Services to Banking" in 2004 (CEO of Royal Bank of Scotland) responsible for the largest loss for a PLC in British history and a taxpayer bailout of RBS (or it would have resulted in bankruptcy) of approx $72,000,000,000 and had his Knighthood revoked in 2012.

December 2002 – Forbes (global edition) "Businessman of the Year", which described him as an original thinker with a fast-forward frame of mind who had transformed RBS from a nonentity into a global name

Sir James Crosby for "Services to the Financial Industry" in 2006 (CEO of Halifax Bank of Scotland) responsible for bankruptcy of HBOS and a taxpayer bailout of approx $32,000,000,000 and annulled in 2013.

The reason I raised the issue of science turned social movement is that BPS is becoming politicized, and therefore this may influence government and media spin and government policy, including awards given to Whatshisname or anyone else. ("Whatshisname" is a good name, I like it too.)

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Modern day Trofim Lysenko
anyone who doesn't support the agenda those in power want, is destroyed, their funding undercut, blackmailed or whatever

as I keep pointing out, there is little real difference in the evils the West and Soviet Union (after Stalin) got up to in the end, because anything taken to extremes is heinous

During his long career he won eight Orders of Lenin, three State Prizes, and numerous medals and awards

In 1935 Lysenko was elected a full member of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sci ences (VASKhNIL) and the next year was put in charge of its Odessa institute. Also in 1935, Vavilov was removed as president of VASKhNIL; its two subsequent presidents (A. I. Muralov and G. K. Meister) were arrested in the purges, and in 1938 Lysenko assumed the presidency himself and held it until 1956. With the help of the NKVD, he used his new position to harass and undermine Vavilov’s supporters. In the 1939 elections to the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences. Lysenko was elected a full academician and appointed a member of its governing presidium. In August 1940 Vavilov was arrested, and in subsequent months G. D. Karpechenko, G. A. Levitskii, and other Vavilovites disappeared, all died in prisons or camps in the early 1940’s. Recent evidence provided by Popovsky and Soyfer indicates that Lysenko and his followers were directly or indirectly involved in these arrests. In late 1940, immediately following Vavilov’s arrest, Lysenko left Odessa to replace him as director of the academy’s Institute of Genetics in Moscow, a post he held until 1965.

Despite these events, Lysenko was not yet in control of Soviet biology. After World War II, genetics was resurgent, attempts were made by the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences to create a new institute of genetics, and there was widespread public criticism of many of Lysenko’s views. But in mid 1948, at Stalin’s order, a large number of Lysenko’s supporters became members of VASKhNIL by fiat, and in a surprise August session of the academy Lysenko announced, “The Central Committee has read my report and approved it.” Later Lysenko confirmed that Stalin had personally gone over his text. It portrayed Michurinist biology as a socialist, materialist, proletarian science, a kind of “creative Darwinism” deriving from Darwin, Kliment Timiriazev, and Michurin that united theory and practice, and had mastered the control of heredity. By contrast, genetics was depicted as a capitalist, idealist, bourgeois enterprise linked to fascism, deriving from Malthus, Mendel, and Weismann, and incapable of aiding agricultural production. The report asserted that heredity was a malleable property of the whole organism and that one species could be transformed into another in one generation. It categorically denied the reality of intraspecific com petition and the existence of genes, characterizing the search for any hereditary material as a hopeless philosophical mistake.

In the edicts that followed the August 1948 VASKhNIL session, most Soviet geneticists were fired from their jobs, laboratories and institutions were disbanded or reorganized, degree certification and curricula in the biological sciences fell under Lysenkoist control, and “Michurinist biology” became officially sanctioned government policy. By 1952 Lysenko had embraced a number of extreme theories purporting to have the same philosophical basis as his own, including Ol’ga Borisovna Le peshinskaia’s doctrine that living cells form spon taneously from nonliving matter (thus denying the classic cell theory according to which all cells are produced by other cells) and G. M. Bosh’ian’s analogous doctrine of viruses. The 1953 elections to the U.S.S.R. Academy of Science packed its biological sciences division with supporters of Michurinism. In the following years Lysenko’s prominent allies including botanists N. V. Tsitsin and V. N. Stoletov, “geneticists” I. E. Glushchenko and N. I. Nuzhdin, biochemists A. I. Oparin and N. M. Sisakian, paleontologist L. Sh. Davitashvili, and philosopher G. V. Platonov.

In 1948 and 1949 the massive Soviet reforestation program employed Lysenko’s cluster method of planting; the extensive losses of seedlings that resulted made Lysenko vulnerable, and the first critical articles began to appear in late 1952 in Botanicheskii zhurnal with the support of its editor, botanist and forest ecologist Vladimir N. Sukachev. In 1953 the publication of the Watson–Crick model for the structure of DNA aroused interest in genetics among leading figures in the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, including such chemists as Academy president Aleksandr N. Nesmeianov, Nobelist (1956) Nikolai N. Semenov, and Ivan L. Knuniants; physicists Petr Kapitsa, Igor Tamm, Igor Kurchatov, and Andrei D. Sakharov; and mathematicians A. N. Kolmogorov, S. L. Sobolev, A. A. Liapunov, and M. A. Lavrentev. These scientists had gained great prestige and influence as a result of their work in Soviet nuclear, space, and weapons research, and over the next decade they proved to be effective opponents of Lysenkoism.

With Stalin’s death in 1953 and the subsequent de–Stalinization, Lysenko was forced to resign as president of VASKhNIL in 1956, and it appeared for a time that his hegemony over Soviet biology was ending. With the strong support of biochemist Vladimir A. Engel’hardt and other academy leaders, molecular genetics began to develop under a variety of institutional and disciplinary rubrics despite Lysenko’s opposition.

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the NeoLiberal's supporting modern day Eugenics via "the "Biosocial" ideology bullsh*t, HAVE to keep supporting Wessely etc, just as the idiots in the Soviet Union had to support Lysenko, because their entire house of cards, "game of Thrones without the babes, butts or characters with a spine", has wrapped them up in a precarious spiral

it is standard Human behaviour, alas, plenty of examples of such behaviour, "Science" is *not* immune ot such as osme folks wish/believe it should be

Sir Philip Green was awarded a Knighthood for "services for the retail industry" in 2006. He paid his wife a dividend for £800m in which she paid zero tax by moving to Monaco. He left pensioners with a £571 million deficit after selling his BHS shops to a bankrupt for £1.

MP's have voted unanimously this afternoon to strip him of his Knighthood. The forfeiture committee will make the final decision.

"What goes through the mind of a knight of the realm to say those livelihoods and futures [of BHS workers] should be consigned to the control of a three time bankrupt?"- Richard Fuller MP

Sir Philip "took the rings from BHS’s fingers. He beat it black and blue. He starved it of food and water and put it on life support. “And then he wanted credit for keeping it alive.”- Iain Wright MP

Sir Philip is a "billionaire spiv who should never have received a knighthood, a billionaire spiv who has shamed British capitalism." - David Winnick MP"

Labour MP Karen Buck there is the “sense that the game is rigged” in favour of the most powerful people in this country.
She says: “There have to be consequences because otherwise the government can’t look itself in the face”.

Sir Philip Green should never have been knighted and it just shows once again how corrupt this system but also shows that change can come once these issues are exposed and we all stand together and challenge them.

What Sir Philip Green did was financial by leaving a large pension deficit but our Knight of the Realm has done much worse as the harms have been financial and human suffering and deaths.

Millions have been left without medical treatment, have suffered in pain without any help, hundreds if not thousands have died and many have been refused social security benefits and given harmful treatment of GET because of his actions as well as blocking biomedical research for 30 years.